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Table 3-27 Comparison of h-Sonorant vs. simple Sonorant with oral vowels
h-Sonorant with oral vowels Simple Sonorant with oral vowels
Cluster i
ɛ a
o u
Consonant i
ɛ a
o u
ʔm m
ʔn n
ʔɲ ɲ
Again, similar to the glottal stop-sonorant clusters, the co-occurrence patterns coincide with the nasal patterns rather than the glottal fricative patterns indicating ordering in the onset which aligns the
sonorant with the nucleus rather than the glottal fricative. The glottal features do not appear to be a characteristic of the entire onset because, in this case, the presence of the glottal does not license any
additional vowel co-occurrences versus the simple sonorant. Like the simple sonorant consonants, there are no examples of co-occurrence with nasal vowels, therefore aligning with [sv sv]
σ
. It should also be noted that while several examples of h-nasal clusters occur in common, frequently used words like ‘black,’
‘cornfield,’ ‘chili’ and ‘we’ in general examples of this type of cluster are not widespread.
3.4.3.4 Clusters Beginning with Nasals or Pre-nasalized Consonants
The clusters which begin with nasals, but whose primary member is the obstruent that occurs second, are often called pre-nasalized consonants cross-linguistically. Unlike the clusters involving glottal
elements, this group only clusters with obstruents, the non-nasal sonorants do not participate.
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In Soyaltepec Mazatec, the group of obstruents which can appear preceded by a nasal includes
t, k, ts and tʃ; this is the same group of obstruents that was able to combine with h in §3.4.3.3.1 above. The
articulation of these clusters involves a clear nasal which assumes the point of articulation of the following obstruent. The obstruent, in turn, acquires the voicing of the nasal as was discussed in §3.3.2. This is the
only instance in which voicing plays a part of the Soyaltepec system. Because voicing can play a role in the
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While there is a temptation to claim that the ɲ could be the result of a nj cluster, the participation of
the ɲ in hɲ clusters makes this hypothesis very unlikely as clusters of three phonemes never occur in
Soyaltepec Mazatec. Also the j enjoys a wider co-occurrence with vowels, namely i and ɛ than the ɲ.
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pitch of the syllable, I will refer to these clusters using the voiced symbols; however, in so doing I do not mean to imply that these should be added to the consonantal inventory as their occurrence is completely
predictable and environmentally determined. Examples of NC can be seen in Table 3-28. The nasal cluster occurs down the far left column
and vowels across the top row. There are no instances of nasal vowels occurring with these clusters. When multisyllabic morphemes are used, the stressed syllable is indicated through underlining.
Table 3-28 N-Obstruent clusters
Cluster i
ɛ a
o u
nt [nd] ndi˧
‘sterile’ ndɛ˧˥
‘shoe’ nda˩
‘voice’ ndu˩hu˩
‘soap’ nts︢ [nd︢z]
ndz︢i˧hĩ˦˩ ‘equals’
ndz︢ɛ˧ ‘fool’
ndz︢a˩ ‘hand’
tɛ˧ndz︢u˦ ‘goat’˩
nt ʃ︢ [ndʒ︢]
ndʒ︢i˧˩ ‘wet’
ndʒ︢ɛ˩˦ ‘hominy’
ndʒ︢a˩ ‘waterythin’
ndʒ︢u˥ ‘narrow’
nk [ng] ngi˦˥
‘sad’ nga˧
‘when’
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ngu˧˦ ‘one’
None of the pre-nasalized clusters co-occurs with o. The only other gap is nk
ɛ. There are several combinations which do not occur in monosyllabic words in my database i.e., ntu, nts
︢i and nts
︢u; multisyllabic words are provided to show that the combinations are possible. As opposed to the sonorant clusters discussed above in
§3.4.3.2.2 and §3.4.3.3.2, these clusters follow the co-occurrence patterns of the obstruents rather than the sonorants. Again these co-occurrence patterns indicate a linear
ordering within the onset; however, in this case it does not add evidence in favor of clusters as opposed to modified consonants as the pre-nasalized obstruent would logically share similar co-occurrence patterns as
the unmodified obstruent.
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This is the subordinating conjunction, not the question word.
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The question of the exact nature of these combinations, whether they be clusters or modified phonemes, will be left to future research. The fact that this combination is in violation of the Sonority
Sequencing Principle encourages their interpretation as modified phonemes; however, we have seen from the examples of s-stop clusters above st, sk, etc. that strict adherence to the SSP is not required in
Soyaltepec Mazatec.
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None of these onsets can appear in combination with a glottal stop or fricative, lending credence to the theory that they are filling both C slots in the CC of the onset and no more
consonants are possible.
3.4.3.5 Discussion
